Congratulations, Atlanta: Eliminating Cash Bail is a Major Victory for Individual Rights

Congratulations, Atlanta: Eliminating Cash Bail is a Major Victory for Individual Rights

What happened:
In a surprising victory for individual liberty, the Atlanta City Council voted Monday to end pretrial detention for nonviolent crimes, releasing citizens accused of misdemeanors with a signature, rather than requiring a large cash bail. The ordinance recognizes that cash bail systemically violates the rights of the poor by punishing them before they are convicted. A spokesman for the Libertarian Party of Georgia spoke persuasively to the Council and on local television in advance of the historic vote (quote at 1:04 in clip below).

Why it matters to Libertarians:We believe all people must be treated fairly and equally before the law. All rights of all individuals matter all the time – no exceptions. Cash bonds which don’t account for an accused person’s ability to pay are unconstitutional, denying those who can’t buy their freedom due process and equal justice under the 14th Amendment.

Cash bail, pre-trial detention is a social injustice

60-70 percent of jail inmates – half a million people nationwide – are there simply because they’re too poor buy their freedom until they can prove their innocence.

95% of jail population growth since 2000 has been in the “unconvicted” (read: constitutionally innocent) population.

Outrageous, decades-long mandatory minimums and the threat of spending months in jail before even going to trial often forces poor citizens to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges just to go home, regardless of actual innocence.

Prosecutorial conviction records and political careers benefit from “tough on crime” attitudes, with no regard for the human cost. Arrest and imprisonment quotas require a certain number of criminals, even when crime rates fall.

Federal agencies subsidize the labor economy of many rural communities, where pork barrel prison projects and jobs are derived from the systemic storage and containment of legally free citizens.

The appalling conditions of America’s jails would not be tolerated if the wealthy and powerful were at equal risk of being trapped in one.

Pretrial detention violates individuals’ Constitutional and natural rightsThe fundamental principle of due process – that we are each innocent until proven guilty – is violated when the poor are jailed (punished) before being given the opportunity to prove their innocence.

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